Weed-killer Roundup has made weeds harder to kill

How many types of Ohio weeds are resistant to herbicide?

No weed resistant to pulling, hoeing

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By Tom Beyerlein, Staff Writer Updated 8:31 AM Monday, June 7, 2010

Over-reliance on the popular weed-killer Roundup has sped the evolution of weed species resistant to the herbicide, forcing some farmers to return to costlier and less environmentally-friendly methods of controlling crop-destructive infestations.

For 14 years, the calculus of Roundup has been simple: Apply it and pesky weeds die while genetically modified “Roundup Ready” crops live. Farmers stopped using older, harsher herbicides and the heavy field tillage that leads to soil erosion and the runoff of sediments and chemicals into rivers and streams.

Spending less time in the field, they have saved on labor and fuel costs.

“One of the nice things about Roundup is, it doesn’t hang around (in the environment),” said Ralph Dull, who uses it on his Brookville farm fields. “It was considered almost a perfectly clean pesticide.”

But the advantages of Roundup, whose generic name is glyphosate, are in jeopardy, a recent government study noted. The increase in so-called superweeds is stirring concerns about the potential for more pollution and higher prices for consumers.

The problem especially has been devastating in the southern United States, where Roundup-resistant pigweed is choking out cotton. Ohio’s problems are more manageable, experts say, but the state has three resistant species — marestail and giant and common ragweed — infesting corn and soybean fields. Southwest Ohio is the hardest hit part of the state, but the weeds are spreading eastward.

Some Ohio weeds are resistant to older herbicides as well as glyphosate, increasing the difficulty of controlling them.

“We can go back to the old ways, but do we want to do it, environmentally?” said Jeff Stachler, who led several Ohio weed studies. “How do we want to harm the environment the least?”

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2264 or tbeyerlein@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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